Smile
by Magna Dementia
Summary: What do you do when your life is turned upside down? What do you do when everything you know is pulled out from under you? Do you fall?
1. Of Cheese Doodles and Pickle Jars

_Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.  
George Orwell _

So it begins.

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It was not a dark and stormy night. It was dark because it was, like, y'know, night. But it wasn't stormy. Just ridiculously cold. Forty-two degrees. In September. Nope, not a single cloud, but forty-two degrees in September. In the beginning of September. Whoever controlled the weather needed to be fired. And beaten.

It was fucking cold. That's been established.

So instead of being outside or in the ground-level floor of his base, Zim had retreated to its subterranean levels where it was a lot warmer. Irkens hated the cold. Of course, you would never actually find an Irken who would even admit to being able to feel the cold in the first place. "Feeling" was a weakness, and Irkens are not weak. Unless it was something like fury, anger, spite, hatred, rage, or an uncontrollable case of the munchies. Those weren't 'feeling' feelings, they were just Irken.

So Zim, feeling incredibly bored, was holed up in his main computer room that housed the transmission and communications equipment as well as several monitors that displayed and cycled through video and audio feed from numerous cameras placed wherever he felt like putting them, including the MacMeaty's storeroom, at the bottom of a fish tank, and in somebody's mailbox to name a few.

There were miles of tangled cables and countless heaps of scrap technology, Irken and Human alike, as well as broken and half-repaired equipment, their insides spilling about on the floor like some uncompassionately slaughtered animal left to rot, parts missing or corrupted, connections leading to nowhere. Ragged cardboard boxes full of Irk knows what, stacked haphazardly wherever it was convenient. Empty food and snack containers littered the floor and workspace as did a layer of dirt, grime, and whatnot. An overflowing trashcan stood precariously on a tower of pizza boxes, sections of pipe, and glass mayonnaise and pickle jars that GIR was collecting.

Zim did not enjoy the thought of whether the mayonnaise and pickles came in the same jar.

More than a couple of monitors had rows of dead pixels and most of the overhead lights, which were red an dim to begin with, needed to be replaced entirely because when they began their death-throes of mad flickering, he ended their desperate attempts to keep their circuits and connections working with a violent laser blast from one of the weapons scattered about the room, buried under piles of garbage.

The whole room spoke of a violent, uncaring disarray and quiet, disreputable negligence. Much of the rest of his base had fallen into disrepair such as this and the lot of it was coated in a layer of dust as thick and deep as cake frosting that looked infinitely older and considerably more sullen. 

Zim, who was normally quite obsessed with cleanliness, didn't really care and had come to find it quite cozy. He didn't even notice most of the garbage these days.

So there he was, sprawled across a large object that could only be a chair. It appeared to have been half-heartedly assembled from scrap metal and odd bits of plastic and seemed to be held together with old coat hangers and lots of string. It also seemed as though whoever had put it together had given up less than half-way. This was given away by that at first glance, or even second, you couldn't really tell what the contraption was or what purpose it could possibly serve. That and it's utter lack of any real upholstery. It was only by standing, staring, and contemplating accompanied by much head scratching, that a tentative and apprehensive conclusion of "chair?" was, with much caution, eventually approached. Really, it was hard to have such confused puzzling end with anything but "chair".

This was due mostly to that the thing had been decorated in various forms of cushioning. There were several pillows and a couple of what may have once been pieces of couch stuffing. A few blankets were thrown about haphazardly, half hanging off so that anyone stupid enough to actually walk through the room could easily slip on a corner and impale themselves on some abandoned project whose intent surely would have been to utterly decimate everything in its path.

And there you have it. The setting for our dismal little story. A desolate, gloomy, ill-disguised base. A strange, badly conceived chair, and one indifferent, detracted, lugubrious ET, musing over his deplorable situation whilst eating a bag of Cheese Doodles.

Yes, Cheese Doodles. They were the only human snack he would eat. He would never openly admit it, but he really liked Cheese Doodles. You would never get him to admit that Earth's Cheese Doodles were quite better than Irk's cheese doodley munchies, either. Which was quite an accomplishment, seeing as how Irkens have a great talent for compulsive snacking, so their snacks have to be good. They should know how to make cheese doodlies, but Earth apparently knew better.

There was a reason besides the cold that Zim was in his main computer room instead of upstairs. He came to this room whenever he wanted to sit down and just think. It didn't really matter what he thought about. They were generic, sundry subjects, like why Earth had more than 3,000 species of cockroaches (even ones that could fly) whereas most planets just had around eight; how popsicles were made; who Jimmy Hoffa was; where waffles were invented; what kind of grease was used when fries were fried; and when, if, Dib would come after him again.

It wasn't unusual for Zim to think about Dib. He did almost every day and the days not spent thinking about him or other things were usually spent sleeping. The bespectacled boy had changed since they had first met back in that horrible "learning establishment". They had been in what was called the "fourth grade", Dib being only twelve years old, a mere newborn by Irken standards, and Zim considerably older.

Zim had not enjoyed "skool". Not only had he learned of nothing useful for his conquest, the children constantly harassed him, though he did not receive taunts and teases or endure beatings from the bigger and stupider ones as Dib had. Dib was no longer a child.

He had sort of enjoyed, from a decidedly scientific view, watching Dib grow and mature from a small child into near adulthood. This was something that Irkens didn't really go through. At least not in the same sense as humans. There was their hatching as smeets. They got a little taller as time went by. There was no puberty to go through. Nothing of that sort. There wasn't that awkward time of adolescence or being a 'teenager'. One day, they simply became adult Irkens. Smeethood to adult. That was it. So it was interesting to watch Dib "grow up". Which he had. Soon, for his culture, Dib would come of age.

Over the years, Dib had gradually given up his paranormal investigations, turning to "Real Science!!" for a short while before abandoning that as well. Zim knew. He'd been watching him.

He stopped rambling about ghosts and Bigfoot, vampires and werewolves.

And Zim. He had given up on trying to prove that Zim was an alien here to destroy Earth and enslave the human race. This was why the alien wondered if Dib would ever come after him again, because it got awfully lonely with a psychotic robot for company and no visitors, even if they were 'visiting' to try and open you up to figure out how your insides worked. Zim too, had put to rest his attempts to conquer Earth. Four years ago this would have been quite the opposite.

He was sending his usual transmission to his Tallests and when it was answered, he began rattling off his new plans to destroy the humans when he was interrupted.

They told him that he was a failure. That his mission had been fake.

He had been sent to a planet no one was sure even existed with the hope that he would be dead by the time he arrived at a destination that might not even be there. His SIR Unit was constructed of things they had found in the garbage so he couldn't do anymore damage by having something with him that would obey his every command. It didn't even have basic logic functions. Or even basic function functions.

He was useless. He was defective, they had said. Everyone hated him. They had sent him to Earth more as a laugh than anything, but the joke was old and worn out. It wasn't funny anymore. Now he was just a nuisance. He wasn't supposed to be alive. He wasn't even an Invader. He was still just a Food Service Drone, banished from his home planet. But that wasn't enough.

They banished him from the Empire, and when he had argued, they threatened him with an Existence Evaluation. They called it mercy. That they should allow him to live after the catastrophic damages he caused in Operation Impending Doom and after he had killed Tallests Miyuki and Spork.

It had been a shock, hearing that they had discovered he was responsible for those deaths. "It was an accident!" he had told them, but they refused to listen. They didn't care.

And with that, they proclaimed that he was to be an exile. He was not allowed to cross any Empirical Borders, enter any Irken territory, or board any Irken ship, or one bound for Irken territory. He would be put to death immediately if he violated his exile, along with any who helped him do so, whether they be ally or enemy.

His PAK was allowed to continue functioning and a virus was sent to his computers. It prevented him from sending or receiving transmissions of any kind from or to an Irken ship, Empire territory, or from any Irken allies or known enemies, lest he try to seek amnesty or revenge. He was truly an exile now.

It was the worst day of his life. He had always known that his mission was a fake, that the Tallest hated him. Everyone hated him. He had always had the suspicion that his Invader status was the only thing that kept people from jumping him. Truly, he had once been an Invader. He had always known, yet always chose to ignore it until he got so caught up in his own hype that he believed it was real. He so desperately wanted it to be true, to be real. So he played into it. Pretending had seemed like a good idea at the time, because acknowledging the truth was too painful. It only made it hurt more in the end.

But what was most painful, what hurt the absolute most, was that he had been lied to. They had lied to him and turned him into a joke. A joke that was shared by the entire Armada, perhaps the whole Empire. That hurt. It had crushed him. Nowadays all he really did was lie around in the dark, alternating between consuming massive quantities of junk food and starving himself. All in the name of emotional comfort. He had gotten better in the past couple of years. Eventually he even started going outside again, though only at night. He had gotten over his depression, adopting instead a quiet, accepting indifference.

He stopped going to Skool for a long time because there was no longer any point in it. He had only been there for the sake of information gathering. But about a year ago he had returned for one reason and one reason only.

Dib had vanished.


	2. Time

_Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately, it eventually kills all of its students._

Zim had already been on Earth for five years and it had been more than two since the transmission from Red and Purple that sent him into exile. Because of his heavy depression and unwillingness to do anything, Zim didn't notice that Dib was missing until August, almost four months after his initial disappearance. _(AN: April 22nd, if anyone's interested)_

Though Dib had given up on his dream of being a paranormal investigator, they still saw each other in class at Skool where Zim continued his plans and subsequent attempts to bring doom upon the human race and Dib's overly-large head, despite all endeavors made by Dib to convince Zim that he no longer cared that he was an alien, that he could take over the world if he still wanted too, wouldn't try to stop him, and that his head was not big; a statement which he asserted quite vehemently, though with considerably less fury and offense than on occasions past. He had turned to Real Science!! simply to placate his father, but that lost its appeal after a couple of months of endless, worshiping praise and constant work that was difficult, but boring. Mostly math theories and chemicals that could turn glue into plastic and plastic into margarine spread. Zim was impressed that he had lasted so long.

Even so, Dib had continued to stop by Zim's base every now and then just to say hello or ask him why he had been trying to glue a badger to the basketball goal up at Skool or to make an inquiry about the army of blenders that seemed to be mounting an assualt against the daisies in his front lawn and his front door. He had been trying to call a truce, make "friends". Zim recognized that now. A quite distinct memory rose into view as he continued devouring his Cheese Doodles. It had been mere weeks before his exile.

..-. .-.. .- ... ... -... .- -.-. -.-

_It was late February and it showed with horrible showiness._

_Valentine's Day had come and gone in a flurry of pink, red, and white heart-shaped confetti and cardboard valentines and a whirlwind of flying meat. Lots of meat. And sauerkraut. And snow._

_Lots and lots of snow._

_Wet snow, dry snow, mostly-in-between snow, snow that was brown, snow that was yellow, snow that stuck to the sides of houses, snow that froze into layers of ice and refused to be scraped off of car windows, snow that wasn't really snow at all. Snow that fell, snow that floated, snow that fell faster, snow that fell upwards, snow that fell and fell and fell and got bulldozed by a tractor into piles on the side of the street so that cars could drive their owners to work but your house was the only one that had the _entire yard_ filled up all the way to the front door so you couldn't leave your house for a week and your robot minion made snowhumans in the kitchen because the heater was out. (Zim had been particularly livid about that one and as soon as he had successfully tunneled to the street, he hunted down the city officials who were responsible and turned them into catfish. He wound up giggling and humming ridiculous human songs that were themed for their religious festival all the way home, only to beat GIR with a pool cue for setting the couch on fire.) It also snowed rain and ice water and sleet and slush and icicles and once, squid and root beer. It had been snowing all these things since before Christmas, except for the squid. That had only been a one-time deal. Thankfully, because the Skool cafeteria had served up whatever had landed within a twelve-block radius of the building for lunch._

_Because it had finally stopped snowing, Zim was taking advantage of it by going outside to repair one of his lawn gnomes that GIR had damaged in one of his mad taco frenzies. For the past ten minutes he had been trying to pry a frozen squid from the mechanism that allowed the gnome's head to swivel independently of its base so it could freely fire on intruders. The squid needed to be removed because the head could only point at one corner of his base. This however did not stop it from completing its Intruder-Firing duties. and whenever it fired, it blew a large hole in the wall causing the support systems for his satellite dish to break, sending the dish tumbling either through the roof on top of his Voot Runner, or sideways into the wall of the neighboring dwelling, which in turn severed the power feeds leeching energy from the house._

_The gnome had been doing this for a couple of weeks and Zim, infinitely patient Irken that he was, was nonetheless getting tired of having an eight-foot hole in his base, missing half of his energy supply, losing use of his satellite dish, and having to make almost constant repairs on his ship and everything else. The house next door didn't look so hot either. And GIR was starting to go madder than usual because of lack of cartoons._

_Said squid however, refused to be dislodged from its hiding place, merely blinking up at him through a layer of ice and mewling softly. Zim had just decided to resort to kicking the gnome instead, when Dib walked through the front gate, shuffling through the snow, kicking it up, much like one would with leaves in the fall._

_"'t'sup, Zim?"_

_Zim halted, leg in mid-swing, his face contorting into an expression of outrage mixed with that of one who is moments from snapping and committing a violent and uncontrollable act of homicide. Whirling around, he screamed at the top of his lungs:_

_"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"_

_Dib stopped, about to take another step, balancing on one foot while the other remained air-bound snd quirked an eyebrow._

_"Okaaaaaay." Dib let his other foot meet solid ground as he gazed apprehensively at the crazed alien who seemed to be furious over absolutely nothing._

_"I said, Dib-stink," putting emphasis on the insult, "what do you want?" The Invader stood with his feet spread wide and his hands curled into tightly balled fists at his sides. He looked ready to kill something. His eyes were dark and narrowed dangerously. One of them was twitching._

_At the Irken's question, Dib blushed slightly and quickly looked at his feet, running a trail through the snow with the toe of his shoe._

_"Nothing." was the reply as the human shoved his hands deep into his pockets, eyes never leaving the ground. At this point, Zim noticed that Dib wasn't entirely dressed properly for the weather. Although the snow had finally stopped, it was still freezing. Nonetheless, Dib seemed to be wearing minimal clothing, just a hoodie and a pair of snow pants. He also seemed to have a small backpack with him. these were just observations, however. What did he care if the Dib-thing froze on account of his own inability to properly dress himself? What a stupid way to die. 'Serves him right.' he thought._

_"Then get off my lawn!" was the quick retort, and with that he turned back to the gnome head and the accursed squid. Glaring at it, he turned to a less squid-infested area and began removing bits of avocado and petrified taco shell from the wires. Another, much smaller, squid was discovered hiding under the frozen remains of a Krazy Taco bag and he seized it, ripping it from the icicle-encrusted metal and hurli ng it as hard as he could, watching it sail through the window of a house two doors down. All of this happened within seconds, and then..._

_"I'm on the sidewalk."_

_"Same difference!!" he shouted, whirling around once more to confront the human. "Why are you still here?" came the angry demand. Once again, Dib hung his head, though this time with what appeared to be shame._

_"Well, you see... uh ...," he began, scuffing his shoe once more over the now exposed concrete._

_"Um... Dad... isn't home. Hasn't been... for almost a week. And Gaz..." he trailed off, making a pained face at the mention of his sister-monster. "Gaz... she uh sorta... I mean I.. um..." he fidgeted more under the alien's intense, angry stare, pulling one hand from its pocket to scratch at the back of his head._

_"Gaz locked me out of the house," he finished quickly._

_Zim gave a derisive kind of snort accompanied by a vicious and nasty smirk. "How sad. But that doesn't tell me why you're still here, does it?" he asked, leaning against the gnome and crossing his arms, a mocking smile on his face and an evil gleam of amusement in his contact-covered eyes._

_Dib just glared at him, angry for making him have to spell it out. It should be obvious why he was here, even for Zim. With a muttered reply of 'Jerk" and another heated glare, Dib proceeded to spell out to the dense megalomaniacal alien his immediate reasons for being there._

_"Gaz locked me out of the house, Dad's not home to let me in and I don't have my key." Dib furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance at the last part, huffedm crossed his arms, and glared at Zim some more._

_"How come you don't have a key?" was Zim's only concern._

_Dib shot him a look that, of course, in following the standard overused clichés, would have killed him if looks could do such things._

_"You don't remember?" he asked darkly. With an agitated sigh he recounted the events that had transpired to leave him in such a state of keyless-ness._

_"Last week you stole my backpack, convinced it was hiding some sort of weapon. I spent three hours chasing you all around the city before we ended up at the rail-yard where you decided that instead of stealing said 'weapon' and using it against me, you would destroy it. Then you threw it down an old mining vent, laughed at me, screamed at the top of your lungs for a while, and then went home. My key was in my backpack." Dib followed his arms, huffing a little at the stupidity of it all and waited. All the while glaring on at his nemesis as if there were no tomorrow._

_"Oh, yeah. I remember that now. Still bitter at me of course for beating you once again, am I right? Of course, I always beat you so you should really be used to it by now. Such a sore loser, Dib-stink." Zim gave his little speech with all the air and flamboyance of a complete and total stuck-up airhead who has no idea what's going on, or what they are talking about. Which he didn't. Turning back to the human after examining his glove-encased fingernails uninterestedly, he asked "It's a shame you didn't get to use it on me, hmm?"_

_Dib scowled at him. "There was no weapon Zim. But you wouldn't know that, would you? Considering you never even opened it to see what was inside in the first place!" He shouted the last part._

_Quirking the piece of flesh above his left eye where an eyebrow would have resided had he been a human like he almost desperately asserted to be, "Whatever." then, his eyes narrowing again and his upper lip curling slightly, "I'm not going to ask you again, Dib-filth," voice dropping a couple of octaves to convey to the human exactly what kind of a predicament he was about to find himself in, "Why. Are. You. Here?"_

_With a sigh, Dib dropped his arms and his scowl. "I can't get into my house, not like I'd want to be there anyway with Gaz home and threatening to kill me every eight seconds, Dad isn't home, never is, wouldn't notice or care that I was there if he was, I don't have my key so I couldn't get back in even if I wanted to. So, Zim, I am here to ask you if I could possibly stay over here for a little while before I wander off to the mall or something to give Gaz time to forget to lock the door."_

_Standing up straighter, he re-crossed his arms and looked at the stunted alien with nothing more sinister than a hopeful indifference._

_Said alien, on the other side of the yard, stood rooted to the spot next to the malfunctioning gnome. He hadn't been expecting that. Was it some sort of trick? Was the Dib-worm trying to get him to let down his guard so those, what were they called again? The eye-humans that Dib reported to?_

_That had always confused him, that Dib, who was his enemy and trying to prove things like "Bigfeets" and "goests" and something about lamp wires, and him existed, would report to people who specialized in eye care. He just chalked it up to the human's inferior stupidity. So was the filthy worm-baby trying to throw him off so these "eye people" would be able to capture him? So that they could cut him open and poke at his insides?_

_He suppressed a shudder and a little vomit at he thought of a bunch of low-life filthy pig-smelly worm-baby hyoomans poking at his squeedly-spooch. To think of something as revolting as an Earthanoid touching a being of such high superiority as an Irken Invader was sickening._

_Still, that aside, what was the Dib up to? Trusting him was out of the question. No such word or concept existed within Zim's mind. He knew better than to trust people. They always took advantage of it and hurt you in the end. Always. There would be no trusting on his part. It wasn't smart._

_Perhaps, however, Dib didn't know this. Truly Dib should know better than to trust him of all people, his arch-nemesis. But maybe, maybe, he didn't. It would just go to show that the human was just as stupid as the rest of his pathetic, inferior race. Somewhere in the recesses of Zim's mind, he was vaguely disappointed._

_He could use this to his advantage. If he could get the Dib-thing to trust him, he could manipulate him completely to his advantage. It would take some time, but perhaps if he altered his brain waves... but there was still the possibility that Dib had planned something and was anticipating him taking such an action. Such low tactics were to be expected from the stupid boy. Well two can play at this game._

_Shooting the human the nastiest look in existence, he spat out a "Fine!!" then turned sharply, spinning on his heel, to continue his attempts at Lawn Gnome Repair._

"_But know this human. If you so much as breathe wrong, I'll kill you."_

_With the promise of death hanging in the frigid air, he turned his attention back to the gnome, all the while keeping tabs on the Dib's every movement._

_He knew he was planning something. He just knew it. Just as Zim was always planning something, so too, was the Dib. Always acting and counter-acting, thwarting his plans with his stupid stupidity and his giant, giant head. He shuddered, oh, how he hated that... that ginormous head of his!! Yes, he knew the Dib was planning something, but the question forefront in his mind, was 'what?'._


	3. Want some squid? No? Then GO AWAY!

Standardized disclaimer sez 'I don't own Invader Zim, it's characters or concepts'. I do however own this story. I didn't steal it from you and if you steal it from me, pain will result. I am not making a profit from writing this story.

* * *

The Dib had been acting awfully strange the past several weeks. First he'd missed a week of Skool, which was not that unusual. Zim had spent that long plotting against Dib but usually he did it during class or else he feigned illness. He had suspected Dib was doing the same but when he returned he just sat as his desk all day with his stupid late work and his stupid big head. Then he had completely ignored him, which pissed him off. No one ignored Zim or his greatness! In retaliation: he ignored him back, observing with a keen eye from afar. Then there were his downright ridiculous claims that he no longer believed in bigfeets or aliens or evil hamsters.

He had scoffed at the idea. Who did he think he was kidding? One did not simply abandon one's pursuits and interests so readily. A fleeting thought suggested he was being blackmailed, but he didn't focus on it too much. His behavior didn't suggest that that was the case. Then he had the nerve to ask about his spybadger on the Skool playground, acting all innocent like he didn't already know. And now **this**?!! The nerve of that human! His enemy, coming to his base, on his property and pretending to be all friendly. Ugh, it was gross. Did he really think that this was working? That the great and MIGHTY **ZIM** would fall for such a ruse??!

At this he stabbed the gnome violently with a tool similar to a screwdriver then smirked because he'd made the human behind him jump. He knew though. He knew what the Dib-monster was up to. Psychological warfare. Acting all weird so Zim would think he'd finally, truly given up; surrendered completely. Then strike when he'd gotten comfortable with the notion that he'd won. When it would really sting the most. But he knew. Oh, how he knew.

He stabbed the gnome again. This time for fun. Fun can sometimes come with unforeseen consequences and in Zim's case, it was to turn back to the first squid, come to a sudden realization, pause, and then stab the squid too.

Death for the squid was painful, stupid, and inky. To pry the squid free, Zim had to push the tool all the way through the rubbery, frozen animal, to the mechanisms on the other side. It was rather grotesque; ink oozing all over the place, staining the icicles a dark black, trickling down their sides and dripping from the points, staining the snow below with perfect, dark circles, almost like blood. Wrenching the screwdriver-contraption first up and then down, he released a vicious smile when he heard the ice crack and felt the squid give a bit. He was rather enjoying himself now, taking manic pleasure from the destruction and a twisted satisfaction from dominating over another being. Yes he was having great fun. But fun can sometimes come with unforeseen consequences and this time, he had forgotten....

"Hey, Zim?"

The sadistic grin that can only come from one enjoying another's pain that had adorned his face vanished, leaving in its wake a contorted scowl, the glint in his eye from borderline madness to anger.

"And don't talk to me!" he shouted without turning, his fun gone, his mood ruined.

Thankfully the stupid beast shut up after that and the Invader was able to return to his work. The things he put up with..... He really should just shoot the damn boy, but that would involve going inside to find a weapon, all of which were down in his labs where it was warm, and then he wouldn't want to come back outside to the freezing cold even if it was to shoot the stupid idiot in the head.

Channeling his anger into something productive wasn't a field where Zim was gifted with great talent. Nonetheless he began making progress, slowly manipulating the stubborn sea creature out of its frozen tomb, mumbling incoherently with a frustrated curse or two thrown in at random intervals. Once or twice he had to remove the tool that he was using for leverage to chip away at the ice surrounding the squid and the blocked mechanism, then re-skewer the squid and wrench it around, until finally, **finally** there was a tremendous crack followed by a snapping noise, and it broke free; ice, squid, screwdriver-thing and all.

Zim stood, turning the device by its handle, causing the squid to rotate first clockwise, then counter-clockwise, examining it from different angles, enjoying his fresh victory. Poking at it with a gloved index finger, his earlier smile returned with less madness and more childish glee at having accomplished something useful.

"Y'want some, Dib-stink?" he questioned the human boy. Having glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye; he had turned to counter the other's expression of utter revulsion, offering him the impaled Cephalopod like some sort of depraved lollipop, eyes closed, grinning maniacally.

"Ugh. NO!" Dib covered his mouth, his face one of disgust, leaning back even though the squid was still a good twelve feet away.

Satisfied that his guest was probably going to vomit, Zim turned back to admire his craftsmanship and assess the damage cause by the squid. The snapping noise had been something breaking but it could easily be fixed in only a few minutes.

Transferring the impaled squid to his left hand he carefully wormed his right hand into the small space. After a few short moments it was clear that his task could not be accomplished without a sacrifice. He tugged his hand back from the tangled mass of frozen equipment and glared at it, clenching the fingers momentarily as if grasping some invisible sphere. Then, so as not to lose his nerve, he quickly pulled the glove off with his teeth and plunged his exposed hand back into the hole to retrieve the broken piece of hardware, hissing as the surrounding ice melted against his bare skin. After a bit more time than he would have liked to have taken, the broken component in his grasp, he violently tore his hand from the cavity. After wiping the excess moisture on his pants, he carefully examined his injured hand. It appeared to have only taken minimal damage. He would apply first aid when his work outside was complete. He was pulling on his glove when the human behind him spoke again.

"Hey, uh, Zim?"

Zim frowned disapprovingly.

"I thought I told you not to talk to me."

He straightened out a finger on his glove and finished putting it on before continuing.

"Hmmm. Yes I was quite sure I told you to shut up."

His hand now safely encased in the protective fabric, he turned to eye the other with a look of utter disdain.

"I'm positive that my memory isn't failing," crossed his arms,

"hmmmm…" a hand came to his mouth as he cast his eye upward, pretending to be thinking hard.

"I didn't forget to tell you to shut up, did I Dib-stink??"

He began making his way slowly towards the boy, stopping only a couple of feet in front of him. Leaning in close to his face, he asked again.

"Did I?"

"Uhm……nooooo."

Zim's face darkened. "then why, pray tell, are you _still talking?_"

"Well, uh, because, well y'see…."

Dib was talking very fast now, panicking slightly. Zim was too close for comfort.

"No, I don't see!" snapped Zim, getting angry again. "I don't see…" he pointed at the boy, finger an inch from his nose, voice raised "…why you can't leave me alone! I don't see why anything I do is any of your business! I don't see why you can't obey a command that even _newborns_ on my planet can follow, and I **don't** see. why. you're still. HERE!

At his last words he was suddenly right in Dib's face, startling the boy enough in his semi-panicked state to send him toppling off his perch and into the wet, melting snow beneath him.

With a yelp, Dib landed on the frosted lawn then glared up at his nemesis in anger and indignation.

What happened next caught Zim slightly off guard. Time seemed to be moving too slowly. His perception was skewed. The Dib was sprawled in the snow beneath him. He was angry. The Dib was angry. These things he saw. He also saw that one of Dib's hands, the left one, was bleeding steadily from the palm where it had scraped the sidewalk as he caught himself from his fall. He also saw that there was a glint in the Dib's eyes that he had never seen there before and it took a heartbeat or two to place it.

Malice.

A sharp, pure, unyielding malice he had never seen in the eyes of a human.

He was confused because these were things that were of no interest to him and therefore had never gained any attention. Why was he noticing them now? And why did everything around the two of them look so blurry? His mind felt strangely blank and it was with slight surprise that he realized the Dib had just shouted something at him.

"Why are you _always_ so **angry?!**"

There was a fractional hesitation before he supplied a response.

"You dare to question the workings of the Irken Elite? Your puny mind could never comprehend the complexities of… ugh! You humans and your questions! Always wanting to know things you can never understand. It is simply the Irken way, Dib-thing, and I suggest you leave it at that and just go home!"

If it was possible, the look in Dib's eyes darkened even further. With a hard glare he hauled himself out of the snow, stumbled, caught himself and with his right hand dramatically flung out before him to aim at Zim's face, declared angrily "You're so full of **shit** Zim!".

Then he turned and stormed out of the small, fenced in yard and made his way down the street.

Zim watched Dib go. Watched as Dib wiped the blood from his hand, which was bleeding much faster now, onto his pants. Watched as Dib passed the house two doors down where a confused neighbor stood looking around in puzzlement, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a frozen squid in the other. Watched as Dib furiously kicked a piece of litter someone had left in the snow, sending it ricocheting off a fence post and into somebody's yard. Watched as the Dib made his way out of the cul-de-sac, thinking of the question he had shouted. In that fractional hesitation before he'd given his crap-out answer the only thought in his otherwise blank mind had been,

'_I don't know.'_

As he watched Dib go out of sight, a sudden frigid gust of wind came pulling at the hem of the jacket covering his Invader's Uniform, causing him to curl in on himself to hide from the cold. And as Dib left him standing there with a broken circuit board in his hand, the snow began to fall once more.

**. -. -.. ****..-. .-.. .- ... .... -... .- -.-. -.-**

That was the last time he'd seen him.

* * *

So yah. I know this has taken forever to update, but guess what? Here it is! Read and enjoy. Please leave a comment if you find any spelling or grammatical errors or anything that just doesn't make sense, and I'll fix it. I'm also holding a contest of sorts. This chapter has yet to be named. I can't really think of anything, so if you come up with something, leave a comment and I will pick my favorite. The winner gets to name this chapter. Whee. I'm very tired right now so forgive me. It's one in the morning. This chapter is also posted on my deviantART account. My deviant name is Azael17 if you'd like to go looking for me. My readers there will also be participating in the naming-contest thing, so if somebody 'wins' from there I'll be sure to let you guys over here know and vice versa.

Hope you enjoy the story and tell me what you think!

Goodnight!


	4. Rain

Zim peered into his Cheese Doodle bag and found that it was empty. With a small noise of contempt, he flung it away and didn't watch as it drifted slowly to the floor, crinkling in protest.

Flashback over, he shifted in his chair, trying to work the stiffness out of his legs. After several minutes of listening to the buzz of a dying light and staring at the monitors without actually seeing what was on them, he flung the blankets away and dove for the file that was lying on the console in front of him.

He hesitated for a moment, staring, then tore open and glared at the contents as though his anger would change what was inside. What was inside made little sense.

It was a report that the computer had compiled for him. After Dib's disappearance when it became apparent that the boy would not be returning anytime soon, Zim's infamous Irken curiosity got the better of him and he began looking for clues as to why the boy had left, where he was going, and if possible, when he would be likely to return. He had his computer monitor all media outlets for any information on Dib and his whereabouts, no matter how irrelevant or minor it might seem. There was bound to be something, he reasoned. After all, this was the son of the most famous man in the city. Surely his disappearance would be of importance.

He found the air waves eerily silent. In the weeks following his disappearance, the only mention of his nemesis was a couple of 10 second TV spots noting that he had last been seen a few blocks from the public library.

The general consensus at school was that Dib being gone was the best thing that had happened since Mitchy had gotten his head stuck in his desk when they were in the first grade. Even Gaz was glad he was missing, not hesitating in telling all of her friends that she finally got the couch all to herself and she didn't have to listen to him talk anymore.

Professor Membrane had made a public announcement stating that he was sure his son was safe and that everything necessary was being done to locate him. There was also a number that people could call if they had any information to share.

But that had been it. Other than that, the city seemed to have forgotten that he existed. This was made easier by the fact that most of the people living here wished that he didn't.

The original report had been compiled a year ago. But this. This was something else. It was the same report but it had been edited. Updated. The computer had found new information about Dib. This was the part that didn't make sense.

Dib had been spotted. Here. In Concord. Five weeks ago, it said. July 23rd, 5:24pm, someone had called the hotline (which had never been disconnected) saying that they had seen the boy in the city park next to the central fountain, they were sure of it.

That wasn't the only one. Four more calls came in in the following hour, saying they had seen Dib. Two more had seen him in the park, another claimed to have seen him at a bus stop downtown, and the fourth was a strange sounding man saying he'd seen him coming out of the public restroom at the Taxidermy Emporium, which Zim frowned at because it was really weird and radically unlikely, plus the old man who had made the call sounded creepy.

There was more. The next morning the calls started again with one from a woman calling from a coffee shop saying he'd bought eighteen java chillers from her and ended, eleven calls later, with one from a teenage girl at the carnival grounds who said he was standing at her booth watching the fireworks. Over the course of the next three days, thirty seven calls came in.

It made no sense. There hadn't been any calls to the hotline in six months. And then thirty seven in three days? There was no way it could be mistaken for anything but what it was. Dib had come back. The calls were proof.

But something strange was going on. On the third day, the calls suddenly stopped. Zim scrolled through a few pages. Yes the last call had come in at 9:56pm on the 25th. After that the hotline went dead and the trail went cold. By the next morning dib was missing again, if he had even been here at all, and that was something that Zim was sure of. Dib had been here.

But why? Why come back for only three days after being gone for so long? Why come back at all? Dib hated it here. Almost as much as Zim did. Almost as much as the people who lived here hated the both of them. It was so…. fishy. Yes that was the word.

"IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!!" Zim shouted, slamming the file to the floor and jumping to his feet. "WHERE THE HELL **ARE** YOU DIB-WORM?!?" He screamed in frustration and gave a violent kick to a something sitting next to him on the floor, sending it flying across the room before throwing himself back into his seat. He lay there for a few moments before rooting around on the floor for the lost file.

He stared at it for a while, occasionally scrolling through pages maybe hoping to find something he'd missed in the past fifty times he'd looked at it when a large explosion from the upper levels shook the base, causing piles of junk to collapse all over the room.

Zim groaned miserably as the alarms went off, drug himself out of his seat and began navigating through the mess, carefully making his way to the hallway where he promptly tripped over the whatever-it-was he had kicked earlier. Cursing, he keyed in the elevator code for the damaged level, as indicated my several monitors flashing red on the wall in front of him. As the elevator began to move, he grabbed a kind of gas mask off the wall and put it on just as the elevator jolted to a stop. The doors slid open and a cloud of acrid, yellow-black smoke immediately invaded the small space.

"Oh goody," Zim muttered, rolling his eyes and sighing heavily before groping his way around the perimeter of the room. Nothing was visible. Nothing. It took him several minutes of tripping, bumped shins, cursing, and blind flailing to find the control panel he was searching for. Leaning incredibly close to see what he was doing, he punched in a couple of codes.

The first code turned on the ventilation fans. Another alarm sounded in tandem with the three already screaming at him and the floor began to vibrate with the force of the machinery as the fans pulled the noxious smoke from the room. When the smoke was gone and the fans stopped turning, there was one alarm left still blaring, letting him know as loudly as possible that the fans had done an excellent job of removing all of the air from the room as well as the smoke.

Code number two returned the proper atmosphere to the space with a terrible whooshing of air from the one-way vents that sent several unsecured pieces of equipment cartwheeling around the room. The alarms finally stopped, followed closely by the disorienting flashing of the emergency lights. Elsewhere in the base, emergency bulkhead doors that were programmed to contain this sort of event (along with fire, disease, flood, enemy infiltration, and a slew of other things) from spreading to the rest of the base by closing and locking in key areas, were overridden by a third code and slid back open.

Zim turned to examine the cause of the explosion, regarding it with the boredom and exasperation of someone who had done this far too many times. "GIR what are you doing?" he asked in what Zim _hoped_ was an 'I'm-not-going-to-take-any-more-of-your-bullshit' voice.

There was a large hole in the ceiling from which spilled an equally large jumble of cables. GIR was dangling upside down, suspended by an ankle. "I dunno!" GIR sang as he spun in the air.

"Are you sure?"

"Mmmmm…. Nuh-uh!" GIR began screeching and twirling in ever-faster circles.

Zim's patience was extraordinarily short today and he'd finally had enough. He tore his mask off and flung it across the room then reached out for GIR, grabbing him by his captured foot and pulling him down, ripping several cables from their ports in the process.

The lights went out. "YAY! Let's play hide-and-seek!"

With one eye twitching Zim whirled around, android still in tow, and stormed out of the room as backup lights flickered to life around the edges of the ceiling. Stalking back to the elevator, he punched in the code for the ground level. As soon as the floor slid open he slammed open the front door and hurled GIR outside, watching as the diminutive robot sailed screaming across the yard and landed in a rather cold looking puddle at the end of the sidewalk. Apparently it had been raining. GIR didn't move and his enraged master slammed the door shut again. He stormed into the kitchen desperately hoping to find something to break. There was a large stack of unwashed dishes sitting next to the sink. Screaming in frustration, he swept them to the ground, enjoying immensely the sound they made as they connected with the floor. Bending to scoop up the few that hadn't broken, he hurled them at the wall, cheap shrapnel pinging off the counter and the fixtures of the sink. He stood there for a minute to regain his composure. Glancing at the kitchen window, he noticed that the rain hadn't picked back up yet and with a frustrated, defeated kind of sigh, whipped a large dishtowel off of a hook above the sink.

Back in the yard, GIR was no longer lying in the puddle. Just sitting there, looking dejected. Zim felt a pang of guilt as he went to the little robot, not caring who saw him out of his disguise. He knelt down, scooping GIR up in the towel then turned and ran back to the house as a fresh, cold raindrop struck him and left a steaming streak down the side of his face.

With the quick flick of an ankle, the door snapped shut again and the two slumped down onto the couch. GIR perked up considerably once they were safe inside the warmth of the house and began humming merrily as his master toweled him dry. Zim couldn't help but smile a bit at GIR's behavior. He'd become quite attached to the little robot in the past few years, but he'd been neglecting him recently. It was no wonder GIR had decided to blow something up. He just wanted a little attention.

"I'm sorry, GIR. It's not your fault," he whispered into his minion's audio receptor.

GIR, still seated in Zim's lap, tilted his head back to give his master a ridiculous grin. "Aw, master, it's okay! I like exploding and you'll find the big-headed boy someday!"

"Yeah," he said softly, turning to stare out the window at the rain. "Someday."

After a few moments of being lost in thought, Zim was suddenly on his feet heading for the kitchen, leaving GIR screeching in delight at having tumbled to the floor. He took the elevator in the fridge down to the storage levels and quickly found the room he was looking for. He began rifling through boxes with a sort of purposeful frenzy, opening a box, poring over its contents, pulling out what he needed then shoving the box aside and moving on to the next one. When he came across a box that had nothing he needed, he slid it into the hall with his foot.

Finally he was certain he had everything he had been looking for. He double-checked the pile of gear laid out before him, ticking each item off on a finger until he was positive it was all there.

Twenty minutes later and after a thorough bath of paste, he was ready to go. With a final tug, a boot he'd pulled out of storage slid snugly onto his foot. In seconds it was tightly laced. He stood to collect the rest of his gear and made his way to the front door. He cracked it open to discover it was pouring.

"_I should have done this a long time ago' _he thought as he scowled at the cold, deadly water that fell from the sky. _"Someday my ass." _ He opened the door all the way and put one foot outside to leave but a voice behind him stopped him from going any further.

"Master, where you goin'?" It was GIR, standing on the rug, holding a rubber pig and looking sad that his master was leaving.

"To find Dib, GIR. Watch the base. I'll be back soon." GIR thought it over for a second before screeching "OKAY!!" and rocketing into the kitchen.

Zim winced at the large crash that followed then jumped when an enormous clash of thunder sounded through the open doorway. He took a few moments to compose himself then flipped up the hood on his raincoat, popped open a large umbrella, pulled the door shut and set off down the sidewalk.


	5. Umbrella

**Oh snap**, it finally happened. It's been, what? Five years since my last update? Life certainly has a way of getting away from us sometimes, doesn't it? It is six o'clock in the morning where I'm at and I haven't managed to sleep. Yet. I fully intend to. But I will make this short.

I'm sorry. To all of you, ANY of you, that have been diligently or passively or any area in between, waiting for an update to this story, I am so, so, SO sorry. There is a long, long list of things I don't like in this world, and people who begin something wonderful, only to question themselves or burnout right when things are getting good, then drop off the face of the planet with no explanation, leaving the rest of us wondering, waiting, curled up with cell phones underneath covers, for something that will never come, are pretty high up on the list. And I turned into one of them. I'm not saying that I think what I write is the shit, but I hate second-guessing myself when I'm passionate about something I think is amazing. Like this story.

I've been working on this for -counts on fingers because she honestly doesn't know- 6 and a half years. 6 and a half years! And it's taken me this long to get this far! I'm terribly ashamed of myself. But I honestly hope that I'm out of the rut I've been in for so long now, and to any readers I still have, this chapter is dedicated to you. Because even if only one other person in this whole entire world is reading this, it is _**totally worth it.**_ It is an honor and a privilege to share this with you, and I can only hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.

So, without further ado, I present chapter six of Smile, which is rated 'D' for dumb, and complete disregard for any canonical layout of the Membrane household. Among other things. Like too many commas. Enjoy!

***EDIT* March 10. I just realized today that not all of my Author's Note here ^ saved when I uploaded it. Oops! ** I also re-ran spell-check, but let me know if I missed anything.

The street was, for lack of a better word, as normal as any other in the neighborhood. Well maintained sidewalks led past almost-manicured lawns of dead grass to houses whose owners could afford to keep the paint from peeling. Not for the first time, Zim noticed that Dib lived on the nicer side of town. The kind of place where people who had lots of money, but didn't care to flaunt it lived. The houses were modest and always clean. Neighborhood committees made sure everyone mowed their lawns and no one painted their front door purple. Pricey cars were kept in garages.

A distant flash of lightning dimly lit the clouds above, closely followed by a rumble of thunder that seemed to make the rain fall harder. As he trudged up the street, Zim idly wondered why it was that the Professor didn't choose to live in a more pretentious area. It certainly wasn't a question of money.

A sudden gust of wind forced him from his thoughts as he fought to keep possession of his umbrella. It pulled and jerked, trying to drag him down the street and he had no other option but to follow, lest it give and pop inside out. Then, just as abruptly as it had come, it was gone, leaving the street eerily silent, save for the pouring rain.

Zim fumbled with the device, bending thin strips of metal back into roughly their original positions and checking for more permanent damage. He swore when he found a joint that had snapped cleanly in half.

A long time ago, Zim had discovered that most humans hated getting wet almost as much as he did. Thus was born the wondrous wonder of waterproof fabric. Humans used it for almost everything. Shoes. Lawn furniture. Towels. And of course, the greatest (and quite possibly only useful) invention to come off the loathsome ball of dirt, the umbrella.

Zim had several of the wonderful devices, and the one he currently held in his grasp, broken, had been his favorite. He glared at it, frowning, silently demanding it fix itself, when another flash of lightning, much closer this time, lit a nearby street sign.

_'Hmmm... Castle Street.'_

Another roll of thunder reverberated through the trees above him, sending several extra-large drops of rain to beat a loud, staccato rhythm on the hood of his rain coat.

He was here already.

The Membrane household was situated halfway up the block at the top of a hill. A giant, white, multi-level box, clashing violently with the more subdued architecture of red brick, large windows, and stone flowerbeds that dominated the rest of the street.

Zim made his way up the sidewalk, dodging around puddles and trying to stay under trees where there was better protection from the rain. When he reached the edge of the Membrane property, ducking behind a line of bushy, obnoxious, ornamental trees, he noted that none of the windows were lit. even the porch and sidewalk lights were off. _'Odd.'_ He supposed it wasn't unusual, given the time. Most people would be asleep by now. Perhaps no one was home. It would certainly make what he was about to do worlds easier. Squaring his shoulders, he squished down the sense of apprehension at having never seen the lights off before.

_'Whatever. It's probably nothing.'_

He quickly folded his umbrella into a ridiculously small and convenient size, stowed it in his bag, and began creeping along the line of horrible prickle-trees towards the backyard fence. The fence was tall, wooden, and Zim noticed with dismay, pointy and splintery at the top. The small bit of luck he'd found by picking the side of the house with the gate, burst into flame at the sight of the industrial padlock. He would be forced to climb over.

_So much for hoping this would be easy.'_

The only place he had a chance at all was where the fence met the house. Where the infuriatingly, logically, inconveniently placed gate met the house. He would be able to use the house as leverage to get up and over, but the gate itself wasn't as stable as the rest of the fence because it wasn't fixed in one place.

It would move and wobble, making it difficult to keep his balance and the hinges would probably make lots of noise, giving away his position. Assuming of course, there was anyone around to notice his position. Not likely. After checking to see that the coast was clear (it was) he deployed two of his PAK legs. With their help he was able to hoist himself up to the top of the fence. Bracing himself against the house with one hand and grabbing onto a fence-post-pipe... thingy with the other, he swung himself over the gate. As expected, the gate wobbled a bit and the hinges gave out a small squeak.

Instead of jumping, which would cause the gate to make even more noise, he carefully lowered himself as far as his arms would let him, then released the gate and dropped; both thanking and cursing his increased height.

Zim rarely allowed himself to recognize that he had faults, but he'd been forced to admit that he had not been paying very close to much of anything when, a couple of years or so ago, he suddenly realized he was no longer tiny. Somewhere along the course of his conquest of Earth, he had grown nearly two Earth feet. It was quite amazing. He had no clue what had caused it or when his growth had started or even if it was finished. As much as it normally would have interested him to answer these questions, at the time he just couldn't make himself care. It hurt to think there was no one around to notice.

He thanked his new Tallness because dropping from the fence at his previous height in such treacherous conditions (RAIN! Lots of rain!) would have undoubtedly caused him to injure himself. He cursed it because at his old height he wouldn't have needed to climb the fence at all. He could have just used his PAK legs to spider his way up the house. As it was, his increased height came with increased weight; longer bones and tendons, muscle growth. It was enough to render his PAK legs next to useless. They were manufactured and calibrated for his previous size and were not designed to change with him. Now they were weak, too short, and only two of them still functioned. Sometimes it made him want to claw his face off. At some point in the future he would need to construct a stronger, more reliable set.

He brushed his hands together to rid them of whatever top-of-the-fence-stuff he'd picked up and turned to survey the backyard. It was obviously uncared for. The area he was standing in was dirt and loosely spaced stepping stones that Zim found tacky, though they were probably here for times such as this, when the dirt turned into a raging sea of mud. There was a workshop toolshed thing against the far fence that Zim suspected full to overflowing like his weapons level's third closet. He picked his way across the stones and turned the corner where there lay a large wooden deck scattered with flower pots the wind had been playing with. Some were broken.

Some feet away there was a sliding glass door that Zim knew from previous excursions led into the kitchen. At the far end of the deck was a matching door, blinds closed, that to what he was sure was a bedroom. Around the corner from that was the garage and the rest of the fence. In the opposite corner from where he was standing was a large, squat wooden box whose function had always eluded him. Next to it was the empty space that used to house a decrepit old swing set that had been far more dangerous than the ones at Skool.

Remembering the first time he'd seen it, Zim had to smile. It was demented, but a smile nonetheless. Dib's misfortunes would never cease to be entertaining. He'd climbed the back fence, intending to terrorize Dib for putting paste in one of his shoes and had found Dib swinging. At the height of one of his swings, Dib had caught sight of him. The following burst of youthful fury had sent the entire contraption, somehow, tilting precariously and crashing to the ground. Zim had followed shortly after, unable to hold onto the fence for laughing so hard. Apparently, the set had outlived its usefulness and been disposed of.

His target was Dib's bedroom. He scanned the exterior of the house, shielding his eyes from the sky-water with one hand, and discovered that what he was looking for was back the way he came. There, _'Why did he __have_ _to be on the second floor?'_ high above the kitchen window, was Dib's bedroom. He recognized it at once because it was the only that had round windows. Honestly. Round windows? It never bothered Zim until the day he noticed that Earth children, when drawing, only ever put round windows on two things; boats and space ships.

He rolled his eyes and began calculating the best possible means for entry. There was of course, the kitchen door. From there the stairs were just across the living room. But Dib's room was at the end of the hall. Past Gaz's. Zim shuddered. The window it was. But how to get up there? His PAK legs wouldn't support him and he certainly wasn't going to attempt climbing the wall. There was an impressively massive tree sufficiently close, but its lowest branch was still far too high.

His answer came in the form of a large, sturdy plastic trash can. He examined it and concluded that the hinged lid would hold his weight. Not that it mattered. He had not come all this way, waited this long, wasted so much _time_, to be defeated by a trash receptacle. He grabbed the can, dragging it into position through the mud. He still wouldn't be able to reach the branch. But he would be able to reach a bracket for the gutter drainpipe attached to the wall next to the kitchen window. He fiddled with the can, trying to level it out, with limited success, until he finally gave up and unceremoniously heaved himself onto the can. And promptly found himself scrabbling at the window frame as the can tilted dangerously in the mud.

_'Damnit.'_ Trying to convince himself his heart wasn't pounding and that he hadn't just almost squealed like a preteen Earth girl, he shifted his weight, only to grip the frame tighter as the can tilted again. Glass bottles and aluminum cans clinked and rattled ominously from within, promising a large, noisy mess and full tactical retreat. _'Why do I always get myself into these situations?'_ He shifted again, removing one hand from the frame to reach for the bracket above him and carefully lifted one foot to rest on the window sill. The can clinked at him. Double-checking to make sure he had a firm grip and resolutely not thinking anything as cliché as 'here goes nothing', he pushed off the (horribly slippery) windowsill and hauled himself up the drainpipe, just managing to catch the next bracket before his makeshift ladder crashed to the ground, throwing its contents _everywhere_.

Only it didn't. Blinking his eyes open he looked down from his perch in confusion. The can sat there, teetering on an uneven stepping stone. Zim braced himself for the inevitable delayed reaction then gave an irritated huff as the can stubbornly stopped moving. Shooting it a final glare, he shimmied up the remainder of the drain pipe, cursing gravity, shoelaces that catch on stray nails, Dib for going missing in the first place, and the cold trickle of water that had infiltrated his right sleeve. Finally he reached the top and silently thanked the hardware store owner that had sold the family the crap ass lock that should have been securing the window he was awkwardly and painfully clambering through.

Half tumbling out the other side and half somehow-managing-to-almost-twist-his-ankle-on-a-**mattress**, Zim was finally out of the rain and stood dripping on Dib's bed. He winced as the window screeched closed and turned to observe his surroundings.

It was... different, from what he remembered. Gone were the posters and drawings, the maps and charts and floor plans. The wobbly-headed figures off monsters and aliens, the scale models of rockets and blueprints of ships. The walls still seemed to be a deep shade of blue, though it was hard to tell in the dark, and most if the glow-in-the-dark shapes were missing.

All traces of Dib's passion seemed to have vanished, eradicated from the space, including the ufo bedsheets that used to adorn the bare mattress he was standing on. The only thing that seemed familiar was the thick layer of dust that inhabited most of Zim's own quarters. The jumbled mass of electrical hardware Dib called his computer was quiet, the hum of wires silenced and the bright LED's blackened, making the whole mess look creepily undead, like something would crawl out of the desk and eat him. Zim noted that some of the drive slots were empty.

The dead computer made the room darker than it should have been and it took a few minutes for Zim's superior eyes to adjust. He was looking for clues. A receipt or address, phone number, ticket stub, map; hell, a new t-shirt would do.

"Now where to begin?"

He stepped down off the mattress, the springs giving a disgruntled squeak, and moved across the tiny room to the dresser, noting with dismay that the wall above it that had been devoted entirely to him, was also bare. The only things there now were the occasional pushpin and a blank sticky note. However much he hated the Dib-thing, it had been nice to have someone give so much of their energy and attention to him. He had been quite pleased when he had first seen it, though he had scoffed because the wall had obviously indicated that Dib was 'losing' whatever childish competition they'd been having. Fingering the lone sticky note with a small sigh, he turned his attention on the dresser.

Junk. Everywhere. Crumpled bits and scraps of paper. All useless. Petrified pizza crusts and a broken pen. A small pile of clothes that didn't move when Zim poked them. He cringed at the smell. The drawers proved just as useless. One or two were empty and another contained only a pair of gloves. The rest were full of exactly what they were meant to contain. Clothing. Not wanting to leave the proverbial stone unturned, he rifled through the fabric, shaking out t-shirts and turning out pockets, finding only a large woodchip he recognized from the old Skool playground, a half-melted cough drop, and a small collection of Earth coins. One drawer was stuck and refused to open.

Zim frowned from where he knelt next to the stuck drawer.

_'Where did he _put _it all?'_

Zim had never really believed that Dib had given up on the paranormal, and some of the information the boy had collected (most of it involving himself) was actually useful. Zim found it hard to believe that Dib would just throw it all away. You never know when you're going to need something again. Given the similarities between the Dib-thing and himself, however reluctantly, he knew that the boy hoarded his crap somewhere. And there was sure to be a lot of it. He was counting on it.

_'Well, wherever it all is, it definitely isn't in here.'_

He spared a quick glance under the bed and having seen his share of horror movies, kept his hands to himself.

_So the only other place left would be...'_

The closet. Another rumble of thunder sounded outside and the wind threw loud drops against the windows. He crept across the carpet and promptly noticed that, of course the door would be broken. It was a sliding door, tilted, stuck unmoving in its warped frame. After jiggling the door a bit and deciding it was definitely not going to move, he slung his bag to the floor and rummaged through the front pocket until it surrendered a small metal... flashlight looking... thing. Normally he kept this kind of junk in his PAK, but with his exile came the joy of not being able to order any kind of supplies, including replacement parts for his PAK. The storage portions needed repair and he hadn't seen any reason to fix them. Until now.

He fiddled with the little black and silver tube, twisting an inlay at one end until the little ring glowed a sort-of-dim purple, then pushing a button on the other end, revealing the device to be well, a flashlight thing.

A beam of deep red light cut through the darkness around the closet door and Zim examined it closer. There was a slight gap near the top on the right hand side, but all he could see was the vague outline of a box on the top shelf. Stepping back, he ran the beam of light around the frame and noticed that the top edge was where the majority of the damage was. But he couldn't reach... Frowning, he swung back around and located a swivel chair, upturned beneath the desk. Crossing the room once more, he retrieved the chair and wheeled it back to the closet. Standing on the chair, he could see that the wheels had jumped the tracks and lodged themselves against the decorative piece of wood that kept people from seeing the hardware. The good news, he supposed, was that the strip of wood itself was damaged, splintered and hanging on by only a couple of cheap penny nails. It would be really easy to just pop it off. Fiddling with his flashlight thingie again, the light was soon joined by a small, dangerously sharp knife, slightly hooked at one end and serrated halfway up.

Reaching up, he carefully wedged the curved edge of the blade between the busted piece of wood and the drywall behind it and slowly worked it back and forth, slowly prying it off the nail closest to him; a nasty, half-bent piece of cheap, useless...Zim was grumbling to himself under his breath at this point. But the nail, which stubbornly refused to surrender, if only to piss him off, Zim suspected, eventually relinquished its hold on the wall instead, popping out with the tiniest of dry, squeaky sounds and a small showering of chalky, white dust.

_'One down...'_

Zim wiggled the flimsy board to test the remaining nail and the entire mess came right off, a few sad splinters staying behind on the wall. Zim blinked down at it in surprise. "Oh," he said quietly to himself. "Well then. Hm." Drumming his fingers once against the hunk of junk, he glanced to the side and found a place to put it, climbing down to lean the long strip of dead tree in the corner next to the bedroom door. Back at the frame, he examined the shitty little plastic wheels attached to the top of the door, finding them encrusted with dirt, broken with age, metal hardware rusted. It was a simple matter really, to take a broken wheel, only to have it come apart in his hand, jiggle the door softly to loosen it, pausing momentarily to listen for any noise aside from the distant rumble of thunder and slowly abating rain. Clenching his flashlight between his teeth, he gently pulled and lifted the cheap cardboard/compressed sawdust rectangle out of its lower track, the door making less noise than a resigned sigh of defeat. Maneuvering the door to the right of the closet, he leaned it against the wall at the foot of the bed and turned back to the space, wiping the saliva off the end of his flashlight.

What he found... was less than spectacular. There was certainly more in the closet than in the rest of the room but it still wasn't much. A small pile of rumpled clothes, a few cardboard boxes. A dozen or so hangers, empty save for the stray t-shirt or two. The narrow shelf above him had more boxes, though these were smaller. With a small sigh, Zim nudged the roly-chair out of the way and resigned himself to low expectations as he began methodically rummaging through the jeans on the closet floor.


	6. Conspiracy (incomplete)

As the title suggests, this chapter is incomplete. The online word processor I used to type this up crapped out on me so I had to cut it off. Took me five minutes to delete two sentences because the program and my tablet do not get along. I went back and forth with myself over whether to post this chapter unfinished, but in the end I decided that you all have waited long enough. I wish to upload the rest of it in the next two weeks, but life is weird and I'm getting ready to move, so we'll have to see. We'll also have to see if I decide to post the rest as an update to this chapter or as it's own.

This chapter was brought to you by Earl Gray, receipt tape, brownie farming, the antics of space robots who seem to have somehow become my muses, and to the greatest possible extent, Wi-Fi. Also, the caffeine-laced air at Starbucks. 

**it would be great if anyone could inform me of typos and funky grammar. feel free to ask any questions in a review or PM.  
**

So far, Zim had turned out the pockets of six pairs of jeans, and shaken out three socks and four shirts. He had nothing to show for it except for a gum wrapper and a dead mouse that had just fallen out of the shoe he was holding. Cringing with disgust, Zim nudged the mouse as far away from himself as he could with the boot it had fallen out of, thankful that it hadn't tumbled into his lap, then put the shoe off to the side with its mate and the pile of clothes he had piled next to him.

Crawling into the closet to drag out a cardboard box revealed dust, a marble, and a tiny plastic building block, which Zim found with his knee. Digging through said box yielded more marbles and plastic building blocks, a posable toy robot emblazoned with a ridiculous flame design, a plastic horse, a handful of broken colored pencils and crayons, a broken airplane, and a... thing. Finding nothing of use, save for the knowledge that Dib had weird-ass taste in toys, he hauled out the remaining boxes. They contained much of the same, and also a lot of old skool-work, most of it covered with chipped macaroni and ugly buttons, or bedazzled with glitter. Or both.

The boxes on the shelf above him had only shoes, old board games, and a fossilized cockroach.

Zim clambered off the chair with an irritated huff and dropped his light into the pile of jeans. This was so much bullshit. Where had Dib put all his stuff? There was a time when every inch off this room was covered in... paranormal whatevers. He thunked down in the chair, swiveling it with one foot as it sank closer to the floor. The walls would have been papered. Part of the ceiling too. The dresser and desk would have no room to spare and the closet would be full to bursting. Now though... Zim spared the closet another glance, slouching to rest his head in his hands. Now he could see the flattened imprints in the carpet where all of that used to be. Surely he hasn't just thrown it all away. Some small part of him sadly hoped he'd meant more to the Dib-stink than that. He'd already been thrown away once.

Maybe he was being stupid. Because really,

"What am I doing here?" He whispered, kicking at a stray fuzzy thing on the carpet.

What did he care what happened to the Dib? He started twirling again, with the other foot this time, even though it felt awkward, stretching his arms above his head and behind the back of the chair with a sigh. Clearly Dib didn't care what happened to Zim. Otherwise... no. Zim shook his head, rustling his wig. He refused to go down that road of thought. So what if the Dib-stink was gone? Kudos to him and good-fucking-riddance! Leaving town without so much as a scathing insult or witty... witicism. He scoffed, suddenly irritated. Zim could see it now. The stupid dirt-monkey, gleefully flinging his possessions into bags (**he **certainly would) not a care into he world or a backwards glance, zooming off into the horrible sunset in Tak's old Voot Cruiser.

Zim froze, contacted eyes widening ridiculously. Of course! Why hadn't he thought of that sooner?! Tak's Voot Cruiser! Had the Dib-thing really managed to get it working? It was the biggest long shot in ever because the human's understanding of Irken technology was pathetically laughable. Where had the Dib kept that thing? Zim leapt from the chair, flinching when it skreeked in he silence of the darkened room, the thunder long since faded from booms and crashes to distant, deep-bassed rumbles, the rain a gentle, steady pattering. He listened hard, stiff with the fear of sudden discovery.

Nothing.

Zim let out a whoosh of air and splayed his hands against his chest, trying to willingly calm his overreactive circulatory system. Wow he really needed to calm down. Being swift to react to potential danger was one thing and panicking like a novice was another. One could save your skin and the other often led to a gruesome, pathetic death.

Okay. The Voot Cruiser. Where had Dib kept that thing? It was too big to fit in the tool shed and there was no way to get it inside the house. Zim frowned. He certainly hoped that the boy hadn't been foolish enough to just leave it out in the yard, given this planet's propensity for ridiculous, unpredictable weather phenomenon. And there wouldn't be much chance of finding clues in the grass. The garage however. There was plenty of opportunity for fuel residue, stray hardware, and radioactive ion clouds in there. Lots of hard, non-porous surfaces for things to stick to and shelves for runaway screws to roll under.

The garage. Was downstairs. Zim was not. The notion of having to get past Gaz undetected was daunting and made his organs squirm, but there was no way he was climbing back out the window to squelch through the cold and the wet and the mud. He was fairly sure that the entrance to the garage was somewhere off the kitchen, so once he was finished there he could just leave via the kitchen door. Never mind that he could have come in through said door to begin with.

Sparing a window a quick glance, he saw only the flailing of tree branches frantic to keep what few leaves they had left out of the clutches of the beating wind. Nope. Definitely not going out there.

Zim turned to Dib's incredibly boring bedroom door. There was a sad little slide lock a ways above the knob, but no deadbolts or other nonsense. He reached out and turned the knob in slow, tiny increments, determined to not startle himself anymore with stupid little noises. knob reached the end of its turn radius and Zim pulled on it gently, prepared to defend himself against the human female that was surely waiting for him in the hallway.

It didn't move.

Confused, he pulled again, a little harder this time. The door budged the smallest amount.

_What the...why won't it..?_

He stared at the little slide lock above him as he pulled once more, his eyes convincing his magnificent brain that, yes, it was disengaged. So **why** wasn't it opening? His antennae, curled up into his new wig, picked up a faint clink from the other side. Of course.

_It's locked from the other side._

It was the only logical conclusion. There was no mechanism on the knob and the door opened toward him. It's not like there was anything in the way. Zim rolled his eyes, an unfortunate habit he'd picked up from the natives, which nonetheless conveyed his outstanding irritation. Well this at least was an obstacle he could overcome with little to no fuss. It was something he had encountered before and the solution was both glaringly obvious and very simple. See, hinges on Irken products were designed to be closed at both ends. A matter of both durability and security. The hinges on this door however. Zim tried to quash his irrational rage at yet another example of Earth 'security'. He just didn't get it. Did these people want their house broken into?! Did they want to be taken over? Nevermind that he had been here for years and hadn't managed to take over more than an empty lot. Or that he could barely get through a door.

Now had this been any other day he would have just torn through it like it was wet construction paper. The only reason he was bothering with stealth was because he couldn't afford to be injured. The supplies he had at his base were substantial, but not infinite, and until he managed to contact a few old acquaintances he would have to make do with what he could find on Earth. Anything beyond breaking a minor bone would put him in a dire situation.

The hinges on pathetic Earth technology were only closed on one end. Like the ones in front of him. This was a problem because anyone could just waltz right up, assuming they were on the right side, and just slide the pins out. That wouldn't work in this particular situation, but he was still getting through. He retrieved his flashlight and bag from the floor behind him and set to work. The press of a few more buttons and another twist and a half produced a cross-head screwdriver and a spray nozzle from the device.

The hinges received a thorough drenching from the industrial grade lubricant in the teeny reservoir and Zim got to work removing the screws attaching the hardware to the rest of the house. Normally these plates of metal were installed on the inside edges of the door and the jamb, where you couldn't see them, and so you couldn't just take them off like he was doing. Instead, whoever had put them in had screwed them right onto the frame, the idiot. In less than a minute, Zim had removed the screws from the middle and bottom hinges. The top one took longer because he had to stand on the chair again and it's hard to do anything while standing on an office chair. Hopefully this would be the last obstacle of the evening.

Now all he had to do was push the door out into the hallway and hope the supposed lock on the other side didn't rattle. Ready to get this whole mess over with, he slung his bag up from the floor, rolled the chair out of the way, and carefully moved the door past its frame, supporting the underside with the toe of one boot to keep it from swinging wildly.

Pausing to turn his light off, he was soon halfway in the hall, peering around cautiously for signs of life, most notably Gaz. Still nothing. His previous observation about the lights was proving truer. The hall was very, very dark; no light coming from beneath doors or up the stairwell. It was quiet too. No radio or TV noises, or the blip-bloop of a video game. Just the storm. It was kind of unnerving. He began wedging the door back into its frame and another soft clink reminded him of the obstruction that had caused him so much unnecessary irritation. A thick, heavy padlock hung from the doorframe. It made no sense. How was the Dib supposed to get inside if/when he came back? It was unlikely he put it there himself.

He shrugged off his growing sense of disconcertment and began creeping down the hallway, screwdriver clutched tightly in his fist. The bathroom was passed with no fanfare but Zim startled badly when he discovered Gaz's room wide open but dark, the only illumination coming from the eyes of an exceedingly creepy stuffed bear above the empty bead. So, either she wasn't home or she was lurking somewhere, waiting to leap from the shadows and devour his organs. Maybe. Zim thought there was a high probability. He proceeded down the stairs with a bit more caution and apprehension, taking time to peek through the railings to make sure she wasn't hiding in the living room. Or hanging from the ceiling.

The stairs spat him out in a corner of the living room next to a hallway just as dark and creepily silent as the one upstairs. Another visual sweep of the room showed nothing more than shadowed, lumpy furniture and weird lamps and Zim moved warily into the hallway in front of him. Some ways off to the right was the kitchen and the door in front of him, slightly ajar, hid mounds of clothing and the near inaudible hum of a deep freeze. On the left lay a few more doors, the last of which he knew led to the garage. If the rest of the house had been dark, this part was like an abyss. Inky black shadows seemed to swirl through the space and he swore it got darker the harder he looked.

He couldn't even see the battered garage door and only knew it was there from experience. But that and twenty feet of blackness was all that stood between him and the Cruiser, assuming it was there, and maybe, just maybe, finding the Dib. Zim was going to hit him so hard when he found him. Okay. He could do this. It was just a hallway. It was dark and empty and no one was going to jump out and stab him. He gripped the screwdriver tighter and ooched slowly slowly across the carpet, passing a door on the left, one on the right, and another on the left, one right after the other.

He was so close. **So** close. Looking back he supposed he should have seen it coming. Something always went wrong.


End file.
